How “historically accurate” is sexual violence anyway?

My first piece as a contributor to the feminist nerd site The Mary Sue just dropped! In this essay, I discuss some of the real British history that inspired the events and characters of Game of Thrones, and challenge the notion that the inclusion of pervasive, consistent sexual assault is making this and other shows more “historically accurate”.

Here’s a preview:

“Throughout the seven seasons of Game of Thrones, audiences are shown a variety of gruesome sequences of violence and gore. Most of these are so fantastical that no audience members are likely to experience them in real life: being burned to death by a dragon, giving birth to a shadow monster, or having one’s head explode after a giant presses really hard on one’s eyeballs.

We feel sympathy or horror or discomfort watching these sequences played out in high definition on HBO in large part due to the wild unlikelihood that any of this could ever happen to us. Yet, the sexual assault that pervades the lives of the show’s female characters is not so far removed from the experiences of viewers.”

I read the piece this weekend and really appreciated it. I had never bought into GoT (book or series) because I disagreed with Martin’s approach to the fantasy genre and what it needed, but the article offered much more to think about as well. Thanks for writing it.